Into my heart an air that kills From yon far country blows: What are those blue remembered hills, What spires, what farms are those? That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, The happy highways where I went And cannot come again.
A Shropshire Lad
Song Cycle by Charles Fonteyn Manney (1872 - 1951)
?. Home‑longing  [sung text not yet checked]
Authorship:
- by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), no title, appears in A Shropshire Lad, no. 40, first published 1896
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- ITA Italian (Italiano) (Ferdinando Albeggiani) , "Dentro il mio cuore un vento che uccide", copyright © 2009, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
?. Grief  [sung text not yet checked]
With rue my heart is laden For golden friends I had, For many a rose-lipt maiden And many a lightfoot lad. By brooks too broad for leaping The lightfoot boys are laid; The rose-lipt girls are sleeping In fields where roses fade.
Authorship:
- by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), no title, appears in A Shropshire Lad, no. 54, first published 1896
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Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]?. Youth  [sung text not yet checked]
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide. Now, of my threescore years and ten, Twenty will not come again, And take from seventy [springs]1 a score, It only leaves me fifty more. And since to look at things in bloom Fifty springs are little room, About the [woodlands]2 I will go To see the cherry hung with snow.
Authorship:
- by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), no title, appears in A Shropshire Lad, no. 2, first published 1896
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- FRE French (Français) (Patricia Dillard Eguchi) , copyright © 2018, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- HEB Hebrew (עברית) (Max Mader) , "היפה בעצים", copyright © 2014, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
1 Manton: "years"
2 Steele: "woodland"
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
?. Heart wounds  [sung text not yet checked]
When I was one-and-twenty I heard [a wise man]1 say, "Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away; Give pearls away and rubies But keep your fancy free." But I was one-and-twenty, No use to talk to me. When I was one-and-twenty I heard him say again, "The heart out of the bosom Was never given in vain; 'Tis paid with sighs a plenty And sold for endless rue." And I am two-and-twenty, And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.
Authorship:
- by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), no title, appears in A Shropshire Lad, no. 13, first published 1896
See other settings of this text.
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- FRE French (Français) (Patricia Dillard Eguchi) , copyright © 2018, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- GER German (Deutsch) [singable] (Bertram Kottmann) , "Als ich war einundzwanzig", copyright © 2011, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- HEB Hebrew (עברית) (Max Mader) , "כאשר הייתי בן עשרים ואחת", copyright © 2014, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
1 Steele: "an old man"
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
?. Disillusion  [sung text not yet checked]
Think no more, lad; laugh, be jolly; Why should men make haste to die? Empty heads and tongues a-talking Make the rough road easy walking, And the feather pate of folly Bears the falling sky. Oh, 'tis jesting, dancing, drinking Spins the heavy world around. If young hearts were not so clever, Oh, they would be young for ever; Think no more; 'tis only thinking Lays lads underground.
Authorship:
- by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), no title, appears in A Shropshire Lad, no. 49, first published 1896
See other settings of this text.
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- FRE French (Français) (Patricia Dillard Eguchi) , copyright © 2018, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
- HEB Hebrew (עברית) (Max Mader) , "אל תחשוב עוד", copyright © 2014, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
?. Exile  [sung text not yet checked]
White in the moon the long road lies, The moon stands blank above; White in the moon the long road lies That leads me from my love. Still hangs the hedge without a gust, Still, still the shadows stay: My feet upon the moonlit dust Pursue the ceaseless way. The world is round, so travellers tell, And straight though reach the track, Trudge on, trudge on, 'twill all be well, The way will guide one back. But ere the circle homeward hies Far, far must it remove: White in the moon the long road lies That leads me from my love.
Authorship:
- by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), no title, appears in A Shropshire Lad, no. 36, first published 1896
See other settings of this text.
Researcher for this page: Ted Perry